


Dog Days of Summer (2006)

by xylodemon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: dogdaysofsummer, Ficlet Collection, M/M, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-01
Updated: 2006-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:43:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylodemon/pseuds/xylodemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Remus/Sirius ficlets written for <span></span><a href="http://dogdaysofsummer.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://dogdaysofsummer.livejournal.com/"><b>dogdaysofsummer</b></a> 2006.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. brilliant

**Author's Note:**

> Podfic by [](http://becquinho.livejournal.com/profile)[**becquinho**](http://becquinho.livejournal.com/) available [here](http://www.audiofic.jinjurly.com/dog-days-of-summer-2006).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Warm stone_.

It's too hot for a walk, Remus thinks, but Sirius doesn't seem to be listening. Remus' parents' house is old hat by now, but the environs are unexplored territory for Sirius, and as far as Sirius is concerned, that just won't do. 

He drags Remus down a dirt path that twists away from the rear of the house, with sweaty fingers clamped tight around Remus' wrist. The path climbs a low rise before dipping down toward a copse of trees, cutting through grass that's beginning to brown from the summer swelter. 

They pass a rope swing tied to a gnarled oak and the collapsing remains of what might have been a barn. Wilting flowers watch them as they walk, their reds and oranges and purples bleached to pinks and yellows and blues. 

Remus wonders where they are going, but it doesn't matter, Sirius says. The tip of his nose is pink, and his bare feet are caked with dust. It doesn't matter, he says. We're just going. 

The path dwindles away at an abandoned quarry Remus never knew existed. It's littered with rubbish -- boxes and tires and old rubber boots, and brackish water lingers at the bottom of the deep-delved pit, choked with weeds. 

Remus thinks it's a right mess. Sirius stretches out on the sun-baked limestone and declares it's brilliant.


	2. theirs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was a still, warm day in early July. As one looked out over the flat Essex country, lying so green and peaceful under the afternoon sun, it seemed almost impossible to believe that, not so very far away, a great war was running its appointed course._
> 
>  
> 
> _\--Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. 1924._

The sun dipped low, bled slowly toward the horizon. The heat was persistent but gentle, and Sirius clutched the corpse of an ice pop in a sticky fist. It decomposed quietly, staining his fingers and the grass under his feet. 

The porch was tiny, but so was the house; perhaps a foot and a half larger than the flat he shared with Remus. The kitchen had a maximum occupancy of one and both the bedrooms were roughly the size of a pack of fags, but James and Lily loved it. 

It was theirs. And the baby's. 

Sirius was going to be a godfather. _By the first week of August_ , or _any day now_ , depending on which mediwizard he chose to believe. 

Inside, James watched the news on the Muggle telly Peter bought him last Christmas, and Lily ate sweet pickles and apricot jam, together and straight from the jars. Sirius sighed at the sun, and Remus appeared on the pavement just as he traded his cherry-red ice pop stick for a cigarette. 

It was Wednesday, and Remus had been off _on Order business_ since Saturday. He looked like shit. Sirius wanted to ask about the dust on his cloak and the circles under his eyes and _where the hell have you been_ , but he didn't. Remus smiled, and the words died on Sirius' tongue as the sun tangled in Remus' sandy hair and wreathed his head like a halo.


	3. breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _a picture of beans on toast_

The sun peeks through the window. Its rays play with the detritus in Sirius' flat, hiding in the laundry piled by the door, glinting brightly off the unwashed dishes stacked by the sink. Sirius sets his breakfast on the kitchen table. It's littered in quidditch rags and gentlemen's quarterlies, and it jolts sharply to the left as it's short leg searches for the copy of _Standard Book of Spells, Grade Five_ it's come to depend on. 

Sirius spoons beans onto his toast and wishes the sun (as well as the bloody cheerful birds that seem to be flocking outside the window) a right a proper violent death. From the couch, Remus snores raucously in agreement, with the evidence of last night's piss up tucked safely in the crook of his arm. 

He hadn't been watching when his wand cooked breakfast, a mistake he now sorely regrets. His sausage is overcooked, and his egg is not. It's a wet, sloppy mess, and from its perch atop the beans it studies him like a baleful, watery eye. 

Snoring again, Remus shifts, kicking feebly at a couch cushion. The Firewhisky bottle slides to the floor, and Sirius pushes his plate away. Watchful, the yolk wobbles in a way Sirius can only consider threatening. He banishes his breakfast with a sharp wave of his wand (with the ardent hope he won't stumble upon it later, perhaps in the shower or the hallway coat cupboard), and ambles toward the couch. 

"Get up, Moony," Sirius says, but Remus pays him no heed. "Get up, you great drunk!" 

Remus replies with a variation of _mmph_. He does not address Sirius, but the wadded Gryffindor jumper he's using as a pillow.

"Up," Sirius repeats. He rescues the jumper from it's fate by a red and gold striped sleeve. 

And Remus says: _nngh_. 

"Moony!"

"Wha'd'oo want?" Remus manages, (somewhat) articulate at last. 

"Breakfast."

"Now?" 

Sirius sighs. "It's morning, innit?"

Remus shrugs, and gestures blindly toward the three-eighths of Sirius' one-room-and-a-bath that serves as a kitchen. 

"I can't cook for a damn." 

Remus sits up, and fixes Sirius with a level look. His bleary eyes are not (alarmingly) unlike Sirius' now-Banished egg. "I've known this."

"Floo with me to the Broomsticks," Sirius says. "I'm _starving_ ".

"All right," Remus replies. He stands, bangs his toe on the Firewhisky bottle. "But you're buying."


	4. blighters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _gnats/midges_

The nasty light blighters are _everywhere_. 

Remus ignores them. He'd much prefer they go away, but it's a lovely night -- the sky is clear and it's cooler than it has been in weeks -- and he's not about to let a handful of tiny bugs terrorise him back inside the stuffy flat. He leans a bit away from the lantern, which seems to be the focal point of their swarming, and covers the lip of his beer bottle with his thumb. 

Sirius, on the other hand, is rather being a girl's blouse. 

"I'm being eaten alive!" Sirius insists. He takes a vicious swig of beer and bats irritably at the air around him. Which, Remus notes, is relatively clear. He's sitting closer to the lantern than Sirius is. 

"It's your own fault," Remus comments. "You should wash now and then," he adds, smiling innocently. "It's your stink that's attracting them."

"I do not stink," Sirius replies loftily. He bats at the air again, and Remus chokes back a laugh, because it rather looks like he's trying to clear away a bad smell. "I had a bath this morning."

"You did," Remus concedes, "but then you went to work. You flew all over the island, delivering Quality Quidditch's finest to Wizarding Britain's laziest, then walked halfway across Muggle London looking for the police station because they confiscated your motorbike for being parked illegally."

"It was not parked illegally!" Sirius declares. "There was no sign!"

"You were parked on the pavement."

Grumbling, Sirius stands. The fire escape complains loudly, with the pained groan of ancient and much-abused rusted metal, making the lantern flicker and sway. The midges buzz in confusion, clouding out across the fire escape before regrouping around the window behind Sirius' head. 

"Christ." Sirius hands his beer to Remus and pulls his wand. " _Misky Midgie Mersternomi_!"

A soft tuft of smoke hisses from his wand. It's weak and pale blue, and the midges weather it stoically.

"Been reading Lockhart again, have you?" Remus asks lightly. 

"I'm going inside," Sirius says. "Away from these _cannibals_."

"Oh, have a bath," Remus replies. "I'll be right in."


	5. hooded and cloaked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Panic on the streets of London_  
>  Panic on the streets of Birmingham  
> I wonder to myself  
> Could life ever be sane again?  
> The Leeds side-streets that you slip down  
> I wonder to myself...
> 
>  
> 
> _Hopes may rise on the Grasmere_  
>  But honey pie, you're not safe here  
> So you run down  
> To the safety of the town  
> But there's panic on the streets of Carlisle  
> Dublin, Dundee, Humberside  
> I wonder to myself...
> 
>  
> 
> _Burn down the disco_  
>  Hang the blessed DJ  
> Because the music that they constantly play  
> It says nothing to me about my life  
> Hang the blessed DJ  
> Because the music they constantly play!
> 
>  
> 
> _On the Leeds side-streets that you slip down_  
>  Provincial towns you jog 'round  
> Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj!
> 
>  
> 
> _\--The Smiths, Panic_

Hooded and cloaked. Hooded and cloaked. The door splinters open with the force of a spell and they pour into the room like locusts. 

_We're outnumbered_ , Remus thinks wildly. His hand shakes as he reaches for his wand. 

_James_ , he thinks. _James, Lily, Harry_. A Death Eater rounds the ugly tartan couch, rears up in front of Remus like a mountain. Remus takes aim, wonders if this man has a name. Parents. Kids. A family. _Peter. He's never late for dinner, but today he is, and today they die_. Remus is cold and clammy. _Petrificus Totalus_. The Death Eater stiffens, hits the floor. _Sirius._

 _Sirius Sirius Sirius Sirius_. 

The room flashes with sickly, purple light. Lily screams a spell in a voice Remus doesn't recognise while James duels in the kitchen. Sirius has Harry over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and he casts hex after hex from behind the settee. 

_I love you_. Sirius fires off a curse that should be illegal, would be if the Ministry only knew about it. A Death Eater crumples at Remus' feet. He thinks of Sirius' mouth on his skin, of the flat they don't quite share and the words they've never managed to say, the words they can't say now that the war has made everything stilted and awkward. 

_Sirius Sirius Sirius Sirius._

Harry fists Sirius' sleeves in his tiny hands and cries for his mother. 

_I love you, and I probably should have told you._


	6. sea change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"All of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea -- whether it is to sail or to watch it -- we are going back from whence we came."_
> 
>  
> 
> _\--John F. Kennedy [September 1962]_

The sand is cool between Remus' toes. Stretching, he licks his lips, tastes smoke and salt. The evening breeze is lazy, lacking ambition, and it slowly dances with the flames from the bonfire. 

Peter sleeps, his messy head near Remus' knee and his face pressed into a beach towel strewn with hibiscus flowers and birds of paradise. James and Lily languish on the other side of the fire, their whispered conversation laced with laughter and soft kisses. 

Less than a week ago, they left Hogwarts behind. 

Padfoot is heavy in Remus lap, and his fur is damp from his earlier romp in the ocean. Remus scratches behind Padfoot's ears, and watches the water's unending assault on the shoreline. 

The seventh wave is always the strongest. 

"Wotcher, Moony," Sirius says. Remus didn't notice him change; his fingers are now twisted Sirius' hair. "What'chya thinking about?"

"Home," Remus replies. _Hogwarts_. After seven years, home is a tiny cottage on his parents' farm. _Home_ is Gryffindor Tower and Hogsmeade and the Shrieking Shack.

"You going back?" Sirius asks. He's still in Remus' lap, and Remus' hands are still in his hair. "To the farm, I mean."

"Yeah." They departed for the Potters' beach house almost as soon as their feet hit Platform 9¾. James swears they can stay forever, but Mrs Potter's patience will run out eventually, and after six days, Remus feels he's imposing. "I guess."

Sirius shifts closer and lets his head fall on Remus' shoulder. "You don't want to?"

"I don't know," Remus admits. In spite of James and Lily and Peter, he wraps his arms around Sirius' waist. "I shouldn't. It's not like my parents came into money while I was at Hogwarts. And they're too old to deal with my furry little problem."

Sirius laughs -- a short huff of a noise. His lips brush Remus' neck, and Remus shivers. 

"I'll probably look into some Muggle bedsits," Remus continues. "London, maybe, since that's the best bet for work."

"You can't live with Muggles," Sirius says. "They've got autofobiles and fellytones and all sorts of rubbish you don't know anything about."

"I was raised Muggle, you great prat," Remus returns. "I'll manage." His parents never had a telephone, but Remus is sure, if confronted with one, he wouldn't let it get the better of him. "It makes sense, Sirius. Muggles don't even believe in werewolves. I won't have to declare myself when I apply for a flat or inquire about a job, and I won't have to settle for beast and being wages."

"You could stay with me," Sirius says. 

"Where?" Remus asks. "Your mother--"

"-- is a shrieking harpy, and I'd rather you didn't mention her, Moony. It'll only give me indigestion, and I've no clue what Padfoot's been eating," Sirius cuts in. He sits up, and twists around until he's looking Remus in the eye. "My uncle left me a place. A flat, in London."

"How exactly do you inherit a flat?" Remus asks. "I mean, he was letting it, wasn't he?" 

"He was," Sirius says, leaning close again, "but he wrote me in on the lease before he died." He pauses; Remus can feel him breathing, can hear his heartbeat over the crashing waves and the crackle of the fire. "It's small, but it's not bad. Better than some dusty Muggle erumpet motel."

"Muggles don't have erumpets."

"And the rent's paid up until the middle of 1984."

"Sirius."

"Well, that's you sorted," Sirius says, too cheerfully.

Remus sighs. "Sirius, I can't."

"Of course you can," Sirius replies. He pauses, then sighs himself. "If you're about to give me some rot about charity and needing to make your own way, you can just save it, because I'm not interested." 

"Sirius."

"Someone needs to help me piss away my uncle's fortune, and James is too stupid by half. Spend it all on Evans, he would." Remus opens his mouth to argue, but Sirius stops the words by pressing a finger to his lips. "Pay me rent, if you must."

"I heard that, you furry bastard," James calls. 

"Sod off," Sirius replies. "I'm saving Remus from a ghastly Muggle fate." James mutters something Remus doesn't catch, and Sirius hurls a handful of sand over the fire before turning his attention back to Remus. "What'd'ya say, Moony?"

"Well, I... I don't..."

"I want you there," Sirius says quietly. 

He kisses Remus then, soft and slow, and Remus can taste the ocean on his tongue. Sirius' hands catch in Remus' hair, and Remus counts the waves. 

_One. Two._

"Sirius," Remus murmurs, against Sirius' mouth. _Three_. "James--"

"James can bugger off," Sirius says. _Four_. "It's not like he doesn't know."

"You've told him?" Remus asks. _Five_. "When? Why?" 

"Right after the first time," Sirius says. _Six._. "'Cause it was the smartest thing I ever did."

 _Seven_.


	7. london

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But I love it, I love this city_  
>  How slender is the space between love, mercy and ill will  
> I love to live inside its flesh and blood  
> To feel its ailing pulse in its hidden veins
> 
>  
> 
> _\--Abd al-Sabūr, Ibhār [1940]_  
>  tr. from the original Arabic unknown

London is dark, sickly warm, and Grimmauld Place fades to black. 

Sirius fiddles with the handle of his trunk. The worn leather is smooth under his fingers, and he follows a spidery crack with the pad of his thumb. A faint glimmer of magic lingers in the corner of his eye, but when he turns to face it, it's gone. His family home is nothing but the warped picket fence dividing the lots of 11 and 13. 

He walks. 

Sirius leaves his mother behind with each step, but she manages to chase him with her words. Her voice rings in his ears, echoes inside his head. An owl screeches over head -- the mundane, Muggle kind that are too stupid to carry post. He quickens his pace, hoping to drown his mother's shrieks with scrape of his trunk's wheels on the uneven pavement and the heavy shuffle of his feet. 

He doesn't know where to go. 

James would be easiest; his parents understand that Sirius' family is off their collective nut, and if Sirius can find The Leaky Cauldron, James' house is only a floo away. Peter's out of the question -- his floo is the summer home of an ill-tempered poltergeist who smells of over-baked beans and likes to send the unsuspecting to grates in other countries -- as is Remus. 

Remus, with his warm brown eyes and long fingers and soft kisses. Remus, who lives on a farm Sirius has never seen, just outside some fly-speck of a town Sirius has never heard of. 

London is dark, sickly warm, and Sirius doesn't know how to leave it. A breeze rustles through the trees, humid and thick, and a crisp packet stumbles past his feet. He has is trunk in one hand, his miniature pet niffler in the other, and Remus might as well be on the other side of the _world_. 

When he reaches the corner, he catches a quick flicker of light, a soft pinprick against the dull and starless London sky where his brother's window would be if he still had a brother and the house still stood. 

Sirius turns, and 12 Grimmauld Place fades to Black.


	8. changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _British troops shoot Londonderry rioters_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _\-- BBC [[08 July 1971](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/8/newsid_2496000/2496479.stm)]_

Remus is too young to read the _Daily Prophet_ , but he knows it only reports Muggle news when things are really bad.

He quietly butters his toast. His mother sighs -- a soft, sad sound -- and turns to an inside page. Remus peers at the photo on the front, a wide shot of what could be a town square, but he doesn't quite understand what it shows. The air seems full of smoke, and the sudden bursts of white across the black and grey make Remus think of explosions.

"What's happening, Mum?" he asks. The headline reads _North Ireland Town Plagued by Muggle Riots_.

"What's happening where, sweetheart?" 

"In the paper," he says. There are people in the photo; some are running, some are fighting with each other, and some are lying on the ground. "What's a riot?"

"Nothing," she says quickly. She folds the paper until the photo is hidden inside its pages and sets it aside. 

"Are they dead?" he asks. "Those people on the ground." He starts to tell her they must be, because they were quite still while the others were shouting and running, but his mother cuts him off with a sharp frown.

"Remus."

"Sorry, Mum," he says, and she sighs again. 

"The world is not always a nice place." 

"Which world?" he asks. "The Muggle world, or your world?"

She pauses and sips her tea. "Both," she says finally. "Things are changing, Remus, and not always for the best."

Remus isn't sure this is true. Lots of things changed his first year of school, and it doesn't seem to him that any of it was bad. James Potter grew two inches between the first day of school and Easter holiday, and that was good. Peter Pettigrew lost half a stone from walking up and down the stairs to Gryffindor Tower every day, and that was good, too. 

Then there's Sirius Black, who was mean and nasty when school started. He called Remus a halfbreed on the very first day, and the next day he said Peter was fat and stupid, and he laughed at him for being afraid of the dark. He fought with James all the time; he said James was a traitor for talking to Remus, and he blackened James' eye twice before Christmas alone. 

He wasn't so bad, though, by the end of term. After the Gryffindor-Slytherin game, he asked James if they could go out for Quidditch together next year. A few weeks ago he said Peter was 'all right, sometimes', and on the train ride home he called Remus his friend. 

No, Remus decides. His mother has it all wrong.


	9. quidditch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _england_

"Smith to Giles, Giles to Bones, Bones is up, up -- steady on, mate, you almost lost it! -- Bones back to Giles... Giles is going for the score... Oh! Deflected by Finnegan, and the Quaffle goes to Ireland!"

"Bugger!" James shouts. He leaps from the couch, upsetting the bowl of crisps wedged between his legs. 

"Careful, then!" Sirius says, as crisps rain down like hail. He moves the Wireless to the far end of the table -- safely away from James' flailing -- and gestures the errant crisps under the rug with his wand. 

" _TEN POINTS TO IRELAND_!"

"Cheating bastards," James grumbles. 

"Cheating, how?" Peter asks. "We can't see!" Leaning forward, he squints at the Wireless. 

"And whose idea was that?" Sirius asks, reaching for the crisps. He grunts when he finds the bowl empty and cuffs James on the back of the head. "I'd've rather been there, myself," he adds, and James elbows him in the ribs. 

"Did you have fifty Galleons a piece for the tickets?" Remus asks. Sirius returns James' elbow with a pinch in the side for good measure, and a short scuffle ensues, which Remus ends by charming the crisp bowl to refill itself. 

"Not as such," Sirius admits. 

"Finnegan saves again!" 

"See!" James says, pointing at the Wireless. "Cheating! Finnegan's bat is not regulation size."

"Have you got a crystal ball in your pocket?" Remus asks, helping himself to the last of the curry. 

"No."

"How can you see Finnegan's bat, then?" 

"I can't see it _now_ ," James says wearily. "But I've seen it."

"Finnegan's bat, eh?" Sirius asks, smiling archly. "You can't be taking the piss about me and Moony if you're groping some hairy Irish wanker on the side."

James favours Sirius with a lazy punch to the arm. "He was at Quality Quidditch last month, taking autographs," James explained. "Right after they announced who was playing the Cup. And he had his bat with him, the self-important prat, and it was _huge_. 

"The bat's all right," Peter comments. "Finnegan's short, is all."

"Giles to Smith, Smith is down, around, up, up -- and it's good! Ten points for England! McClearney must've been asleep on his broom!"

"England!" James echoes enthusiastically. The couch shudders under the weight of his patriotism. 

"Oi, Peter," Sirius says. "Grab me a beer, since you're up."

"Who says I'm up?" 

" _Reducto_ ", Sirius replies. Peter's chair shrinks to the size of a thimble, and Peter lands on top of it in a heap. 

"You are now, aren't you?" 

James snorts, but Remus sighs. "Don't be an arse, Sirius."

"Right," Sirius says. "Grab one for yourself, too."

This results in another scuffle, this time between Sirius and Remus, which -- despite James' concern about the fate of the curry -- quickly switches to a good snog.

"Hey, none of that!" James complains. "We're listening to Quidditch."

" _TEN POINTS TO ENGLAND_!"

Sirius smiles against Remus' mouth. "I can hear the Quidditch just fine."


	10. today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"My mother, who hates thunder storms,_  
>  Holds up each summer day and shakes  
> It out suspiciously, lest swarms  
> Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there"
> 
>  
> 
> _\--Philip Larkin, Mother, Summer, I_

"Today," Remus' mum says. 

The heat is heartless and thorough, beating the dry, red earth until it cracks under the weight of the swelter, smothering the plants and flowers until their leaves crisp and their petals wither and bleach. But the air is pregnant, almost stagnant; it buzzes in Sirius' ears, hisses and snaps like the crackle of pent-up magic. 

"Today," she says again. Her words carry a sense of finality that tells Sirius he's witnessing a kind of magic he doesn't understand, a kind of magic that has nothing to do with spells and wands. 

She pulls the laundry from the line stretched between the two skeleton-like trees that guard the back garden, charms closed the chinks in the walls that at night have let in the summer's stifling excuse for a breeze. 

Remus takes her strange prediction and behaviour in his stride, and he helps her lay a faded tarp across a hole in the barn roof. He pulls Sirius around the back of the house, but Sirius is confused, after a few quick kisses, when Remus points him to a stack of firewood. 

"Remus, it's bloody hot enough!" Sirius complains. 

"It's not for a fire," Remus says patiently. "This bit's what didn't fit in the shed. It needs to be put in the house, so it doesn't get wet."

"Wet?" 

"Today," Remus says, with his mother's ominous tone. "Just you watch. She's never been wrong."

The sky bursts like an overripe melon just as the sun dips below the horizon. The rain doesn't fall, it attacks, careening down in fat drops that batter everything in their path. Sirius is outside when it starts, because he wouldn't listen, because the hot stillness of the tiny farmhouse had been too much for him to bear.

"I told you," Remus says. The water soaks his hair, and it sticks to his forehead in thick strands. "She's never been wrong."

Sirius doesn't understand, but he doesn't think he's meant to. It's a different kind of magic -- farmer's magic and old wives' magic -- the kind of magic _his_ family has never even heard of.


End file.
